Category Archives: Alt-right

Red pill comes from the popular and influential 1999 sci-fi action film, The Matrix. Theres a scene early on in the movie in which the main character, Neo, is offered two pills: a red one and a blue one. The red pill represents an awakening, but one that could be difficult and painful. Neos world will be changed uncomfortably if he takes the red pill, but hell be made aware of the truth of the world. The blue pill represents comfort and security. If he takes the blue pill, hell continue to live in blissful ignorance.

The concept has a precedent in the 1990 science fiction film Total Recall. In that film, one character offers another a red pill, said to be a symbol of his desire to return to reality. Theres no blue pill presented, however.

Red pill and blue pill have become slang, respectively, for accepting truth even though its difficult, or rejecting it to cling to a comfortable falsehood.

A more specific, and controversial, use of the term comes from anti-feminist and far-right groups online, many of whom are extremist and misogynistic. In 2012, the Reddit community The Red Pill was founded around the principle that it is men, rather than women, who are oppressed by a society. Taking the red pill, here, is seeing this anti-feminist truth.

Gaining prominence during the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, the alt-rightwhich sometimes overlaps with mens rights groups also adopted red pill.In this context, taking the red pillis seeing the truth that white nationalism is under threat from such things as socialism, feminism, immigration, social justice, and other aspects associated with liberal politics.

In May 2020, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted about taking the red pill; Donald Trumps daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, positively replied. Due to close association of red pills with anti-feminism and white supremacy, the tweets notably caused confusion and controversy.

Taken! https://t.co/Ng0S2OFC93

Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) May 17, 2020

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red pill Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com

Questionable Reasoning: Conspiracy Theories, Propaganda, Numerous Failed Fact ChecksBias Rating: FAR RIGHTFactual Reporting: MIXEDCountry: USAPress Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREEMedia Type: WebsiteTraffic/Popularity: High TrafficMBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

Founded in February 2020 by John Solomon, Just the News is a conservative website that reports political news through podcasts, videos, and textual content. According to their about page, JusttheNews.com is committed to just reporting facts from journalists with a long record of public trust and excellence.

John Solomon serves as the Editor-in-Chief. Solomon was formerly a journalist with The Hill, leaving the paper in October 2019. Solomons reporting has been described as conspiratorial and pro-Trump. Another notable staff is Sharyl Attkisson, the host of the TV show Full Measure, and David Brody from CBN News.

Read our profile on the United States government and media.

Bentley Media Group LLC owns Just the News. Advertising generates revenue.

In review, Just the News publishes videos, podcasts, and journalism from a conservative perspective. Articles and headlines typically do not utilize emotional language such as this: Trumps campaign sues Wisconsin TV station for airing defamatory ad. This story is appropriately sourced to the Washington Post and Priorities.org. Another properly sourced story with little bias is this: Pentagon invokes the Defense Production Act to make 40 million masks.

Editorially, Just the News does not label opinion content, and actually, they dont produce op-eds; however, in examining story selection, they routinely favor President Trump such as this: Trump campaign slaps New York Times with libel suitwhile reporting negatively on Democrats such as this: Cruz decries dangerous Schumer threats against justices, seeks censure. They have published misinformation during the CoronaVirus outbreak of 2020, as seen below in our failed fact checks section. In general, news reporting is not always factual and holds a moderately strong right-leaning bias.

It should be noted that others have accused John Solomon of promoting false conspiracy theories regarding the Bidens and Ukraine.

Overall, we rate Just the News Questionable and Right Biased based on story selection that mostly favors a conservative perspective. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to numerous failed fact checks and the promotion of conspiracy theories and right-wing propaganda. (D. Van Zandt 4/13/2020) Updated (08/18/2022)

Source: https://justthenews.com/

Last Updated on August 18, 2022 by Media Bias Fact Check

Left vs. Right Bias: How we rate the bias of media sources

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Just The News - Media Bias/Fact Check

1 Hurricane Ian is likely to be Floridas deadliest in 87 yearsThe majority of the 100+ casualties are believed to have drowned. (WP $)+ Areas that embrace solar power fare better in extreme weather. (Slate $)+ Bangkoks flooding problem is steadily worsening. (New Yorker $)

2 Its not too late to avoid a winter of extreme illnessAccepting flu and covid shots can help to lessen the blow. (The Atlantic $)+ Covid vaccines don't harm menstrual cycles, a new study says. (Economist $)+ This nanoparticle could be the key to a universal covid vaccine. (MIT Technology Review)

3 You shouldnt worry about the US election getting hackedAt least, thats what the DBI and CISA are saying. (Motherboard)+The alt-rights tech tactics have evolved since the Capitol riots. (Slate $)+ Election misinformation is still thriving in non-English languages. (CNET)

4 Pollution particles can reach babies in the wombDepending on how much pollution the mother is exposed to, soot particles can cross the placenta. (Bloomberg $)

5 Big Tech destroys millions of data storage devices a yearEven though they could wipe and resell them, companies are scared stiff of confidential data falling into the wrong hands. (FT $)

6 Inside the race to end HIVusing CRISPRIn theory, the technology could return cells to a near-standard state. (Wired $)+ The scientist who co-created CRISPR isnt ruling out engineered babies someday. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Chinese apps are still thriving in IndiaDespite the Indian governments efforts to push users toward native apps. (Rest of World)+ Censorship-evading apps are being stamped out in China. (TechCrunch)

8 The rise and rise of facial recognition in US airportsSelf-check in kiosks are being phased out in favor of the controversial technology. (NYT $)+ If you get your face scanned the next time you fly, heres what you should know. (MIT Technology Review)

9 What its like to visit an Instagram tourist trapIt sounds like a whole lot more trouble than its worth. (Vox)

10 Its time to embrace robot dolphins Theyre an ethical alternative to the real thing in captivity. (Hakai Magazine)

Quote of the day

The spam finds its way into my inbox, too.

Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the Federal Election Commission, who helps police US political campaigns, tells the Washington Post that even she cant escape the deluge of political spam emails.

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The Download: TikTok moral panics, and DeepMinds record-breaking AI - MIT Technology Review

It was a sleepy afternoon in the Michigan storefront that houses the campaign operation of Hillary Scholten, a Democratic candidate for Congress. Flyers stacked on folding tables, yard signs ready for the occasional visitor. The vibe was distinctly late August, a time when many campaigns are quietly getting their voter lists in order and hoarding energy for the intense weeks to come. But, in a political year turned inside out by the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision, supporters began streaming in, hungry to knock on doors. Ten people would have been useful, twenty an uncommon success. By 5 P.M., nearly a hundred people had crowded into Scholtens headquarters.

Scholten, a former Justice Department attorney and immigrant-rights advocate, stood at the front of the room. On the wall behind her, a handwritten sign declared her determination to ensure that women always have the right to make their own health care decisions. Some in the audience held preprinted placards from NARAL, the abortion-rights organization, that read Freedom Is for Every Body. Scholten said that, as recently as a decade ago, she couldnt have imagined such a showing for abortion rights in a place like Grand Rapids, which is near where Michigans Right to Life movement is based. The Supreme Court had frightened and infuriated many women, and more than a few men, who want abortion to be legal and accessible. Scholten aims to ride that energy into Congress, in search of a majority that understands the depth and complexity of this issue and will always fight to protect womens reproductive freedom.

Prominent Michigan Democrats are moving reproductive rights to the center of their campaigns, testing the potency of an issue that has put Republican candidates on the defensive for the first time in years. A string of elections, most notably in Kansas, have shown significant increases in turnout among pro-choice voters. A Pew Research Center study released in August found that seventy-one per cent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents consider abortion very important, up from forty-six per cent in March, before the Court issued its Dobbs ruling. With only forty-one per cent of Republicans saying the same, some G.O.P. candidates appear to be sensing electoral danger in absolutist positions. Tom Barrett, who hopes to unseat Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, in central Michigan, changed the wording on his Web site from protect life from conception to consistent pro-life state legislator. In a debate last week, he refused to specify whether hed oppose abortion in cases of rape or incest when pressed by Slotkin and the moderator.

Across Michigan, battles over abortion rights are being fought in a startling number of political, judicial, and medical arenas. On September 7th, a Court of Claims judge stopped an effort supported by the Republican-controlled legislature to revive a 1931 law that would have made all abortions illegal, except to save the life of the mother. The next day, the states Supreme Court, in a 52 vote, approved a ballot measure for the November election that will ask voters to codify new reproductive rights, including the right to make all decisions about pregnancy, in the state constitution. A coalition of abortion opponents had tried to invalidate the petition, which was signed by three-quarters of a million people, by arguing that a lack of spacing between some words made it unintelligible. Chief Justice Bridget McCormack called the effort a bad-faith attempt to disenfranchise voters. The challengers have not produced a single signer who claims to have been confused, she wrote. What a sad marker of the times.

Democrats and Republicans alike expect the ballot initiative to drive pro-choice turnout, as it did in early August in Kansas, where votersincluding Republicans, Independents, and residents of rural counties carried easily by Donald Trump defeated an anti-abortion referendum by eighteen percentage points. Catholic organizations and their allies spent eleven million dollars on anti-abortion messages, but defenders of abortion rights spent slightly more. Sixty-nine per cent of Kansans who registered to vote after the Dobbs decision were women, Tom Bonier, a Democratic political strategist, found. In Michigan, according to his firm, women are out-registering men by a meaningful margin.

Democrats are upbeat about their prospects, buoyed by the record number of signatures, more than twice the required amount, to put the referendum on the ballot. (A recent poll commissioned by the Detroit Free Press found that nearly sixty per cent of Michigan respondents intend to vote yes.) Theyre also wary given the other issues in play, from inflation and crime to education and taxes. It would be a real mistake to assume everyone understands how dire and serious this moment is, Gretchen Whitmer, Michigans Democratic governor, who is running for a second term, told me. This summer, she hosted a series of roundtables on abortion, part of her effort to publicize the stakes. If were not successful, we would have to go international to get access to abortion care, by going to Canada, or going all the way to Illinois, she said. Which will mean a lot of women will not have access, and lives will be lost.

In late August, I tagged along with Scholten as she canvassed in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in East Grand Rapids. (Gerald Ford, the former Republican President, once lived a few blocks away.) At one house, Suzanne Lich came to the door, recognized Scholten, and exclaimed, Its an honor to meet you! She and her husband, Richard, used to vote Republican, but no longer. Were moderates. The Republican Party has gone off the deep end, Suzanne told me. They had signed the petition to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot, and plan to vote for Scholtenand against her anti-abortion opponent. Taking rights from women? Appalling, Richard said. We will never go back. Theyve lost us.

Scholten, who is forty years old, has never held elective office. She started her career as a social worker, before going to law school and later joining the Justice Department, where she worked on the Board of Immigration Appeals during the Obama Administration. In 2017, unable to bear the sheer meanness of Trumps Muslim ban or his family-separation policy, she quit. The work was incompatible, she has said, with her moral and ethical obligations as an attorney and my own faith convictions as a Christian. Soon afterward, she and her husband, Jesse Holcomb, a journalism professor at Calvin University, headed to Grand Rapids with their two young sons. There, she worked for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center and volunteered for the Times Up Legal Defense Fund.

Two years ago, she lost a race for the same House seat to Peter Meijer, a Republican business heir. Within days of taking office, Meijer voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection, infuriating Trump and his followers in Michigan. This year, Meijer was ousted in the primary, with an assist from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which spent nearly half a million dollars on advertisements about John Gibbs, his arch-conservative opponent, who will face Scholten on November 8th. Gibbs is a former Trump Administration official, in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who once described the Democratic Party as Islam, gender-bending, anti-police, u racist! He will not admit that Trump lost the 2020 election, calling it mathematically impossible, even though Joe Biden won nationally by more than seven million votes, and by a hundred and fifty thousand votes in Michigan. On abortion, Gibbs describes himself as one hundred per cent pro-life in all cases. He tweeted, on the morning of the Dobbs decision, God wins! (Gibbs declined my requests for an interview. In a statement provided hours before publication, he called Scholten an extremist on abortion.)

In Hillary Scholtens previous campaign, strategists discouraged her from talking about her faith. This time, she has put her Christian beliefs at the center of a campaign narrative.Photograph by Cory Morse / The Grand Rapids Press / AP

Scholten grew up conservative. Her first political memory is Bill Clinton becoming Presidentshe was so sad that she cried. It wasnt until her senior year in high school that she knew anyone who was publicly pro-choice. Back then, she recalled, I would have said its murder, because thats the only thing Id heard. Over time, her views softened, and she grew to resent such uncompromising visions of Christianity. No legislature, she pointed out, would prohibit blood transfusions at the insistence of Jehovahs Witnesses, who oppose them.

Now a deacon in the Christian Reformed Church, Scholten begins each day by reading the Bible. In her last campaign, which she lost to Meijer by six points, strategists discouraged her from talking about her faith, believing it would alienate progressive voters. Even now, critics tell her to knock off the God talk. This time, she has put her Christian beliefs at the center of a campaign narrative about equity and social justice. She notes that poverty is often a significant catalyst for abortion. Government, she says, needs to widen opportunities for women, including better access to education, higher wages, and housing, so that no woman is ever forced to select an abortion when she wouldnt otherwise need to, or want to.

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Roe vs. Trump in the Michigan Midterms - The New Yorker

As a biracial woman, it wasnt easy forJillian Sunderlandto spend countless hours studying a website devoted to racism, misogyny and hate.

But she perseveredwith her research on theinternet hate site Stormfront.org, which promotes white nationalism and the alt-right movement. Created by former Alabama Ku Klux Klan leader and long-time white supremacist Don Black in 1995, the sites 300,000 members openly share their racist, violent and misogynistic views.

It's the longest running white nationalist forum for hate, and originally, I wanted to look at the common ideology of the people in this white supremacist forum, says Sunderland, a PhD student in the University of Torontosdepartment of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

But what I found were two groups: one prioritizing the hatred of women and one prioritizing the hatred of non-white people and a lot of disagreements that led to a fracture within the movement. I wasnt expecting to find this at all.

Her work Fighting for Masculine Hegemony: Contestation Between Alt-Right and White Nationalist Masculinities on Stormfront.org was recently published in the academic journal,Men and Masculinities. It felt really, really great and it was a long time coming, says Sunderland of learning that her first peer-reviewedpaper had been accepted.

Sunderland says she was fascinated by her findings in what she described as a relatively understudied area, noting they could be used to help disrupt hate movements. But she adds that her long engagement with the platform affected her on a personal level.

Spending hours a day reading hateful comments was sometimes very upsetting, she says, adding that she relied on support from her academic supervisors and from fellow academics studying the same field.

I'm one of the people the forum targets in terms of saying horrible things about Black women, Black men and how biracial people are abominations, she says. And I couldn't believe the level of hatred of women. There was a lot of racism but the way they talked about women was shocking.

Sunderland used the label alt-misogynists for the group of Stormfront.org users who formed their identities around the opposition to women. Men in this group, she says, were usually under 40, though some were much younger. Many were single and opposed marriage.

They see women as representing the breakdown of civilization, says Sunderland. In their minds, women are irresponsible, opportunistic, as well as promiscuous, continually seeking to take advantage of, and exploit, men.

The other group Sunderland called Aryan men. Defining themselves through race, not gender, they were often older, more established and had families.

They identify as defending themselves against Black men, Jewish men and other groups, says Sunderland, adding that they portray themselves as superior to other cultures and races with respect to raising families and possessing traditional family values.

Sunderland was shocked to see just how much alt-misogynists and Aryan men quarreled on the site.

In my paper, I show fighting between these two groups where they try to invalidate and criticize each other, she says. The alt-misogynists were often critical of the older members, accusing them of being out of touch with contemporary society. The fighting got so bad on some occasions, the alt-misogynists would leave the platform altogether.

Often that fighting centred around women and their role in society.

The older 'Aryan' members have established gender norms that men and women are complementary that the man takes care of the woman, says Sunderland. Their base idea is to create a white homeland with growing white families.

The "alt-misogynists," by contrast, have vastly different views on gender and many of them expressed their belief and support for a society thats based on the total domination of women.

Theyre very different from the traditional white nationalists who see women as a part of their movement, says Sunderland. A lot of the older white nationalist members found these views offensive.

Sunderland says she was jarred by the number of posts devoted to victimization.

A big part of the far-right is the sense of superiority, but also this deep sense that society is no longer set up in their favour, she says.

Any kind of boost in diversity or a shift in equity was regarded as a threat to their way of life.

They were referencing divorce rates, declining marriage rates, declining fertility and they viewed these things as examples of a society that was now gynocentric, dominated by women and feminism. And that its actively disadvantaging them.

There's this phrase that equality feels like oppression when you're used to having more privileges. So, they see themselves as victims.

Sunderland says she would sometimes step back and totally disengage from the site and her paper for a week or two to clear her head and then return with a renewed sense of purpose.

My goal is to better understand these movements to help disrupt them, so that kept me level-headed, she says. But studying the extreme right is not for everyone;its studying people who literally advocate for a genocide of non-white people. That's why it's very understudied.

Her paper concluded with the idea that this split between these two groups could offer an opportunity to further impede the wave of hate.

Within social movements, if its a successful movement, there tends to be a unification within a masculine or feminine strategy, she says.

But on this site, that didnt happen. Its a more fractured movement and I think acknowledging their internal dynamics can provide an entry point in how people desist, leave or migrate to and from the far-right.

But to pursue this idea, much more research is needed, Sunderland says.

Future research can lead to more clarity when attempting to deradicalize or prevent radicalization from happening, and I hope my paper offers a way for experts to really grapple with the complexity of hate/far-right movements.

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PhD student examines clash of masculine identities on internet hate site - University of Toronto

Social media companies have done well out of the United States congressional hearings on the January 6 insurrection. They profited from livestreamed video as rioters stormed the Capitol Building. They profited from the incendiary brew of misinformation that incited thousands to travel to Washington D.C. for the Save America rally. They continue to profit from its aftermath. Clickbait extremism has been good for business.

Video footage shot by the rioters themselves has also been a major source of evidence for police and prosecutors. On the day of the Capitol Building attack, content moderators at mainstream social media platforms were overwhelmed with posts that violated their policies against incitement to or glorification of violence. Sites more sympathetic to the extreme right, such as Parler, were awash with such content.

In testifying to the congressional hearings, a former Twitter employee spoke of begging the company to take stronger action. In despair, the night before the attack, she messaged fellow employees:

When people are shooting each other tomorrow, I will try to rest in the knowledge that we tried.

Alluding to tweets by former President Trump, the Proud Boys, and other extremist groups, she spoke of realising that we were at the whim of a violent crowd that was locked and loaded.

In the weeks after the 2019 Christchurch massacre, there were hopeful signs that nations individually and collectively were prepared to better regulate the internet.

Social media companies had fought hard against accepting responsibility for their content, citing arguments that reflected the libertarian philosophies of internet pioneers. In the name of freedom, they argued, long established rules and behavioural norms should be set aside. Their success in influencing law makers has enabled companies to avoid legal penalty, even when their platforms are used to motivate, plan, execute and livestream violent attacks.

After Christchurch, mounting public outrage forced the mainstream companies into action. They acknowledged their platforms had played a role in violent attacks, adopted more stringent policies around acceptable content, hired more content moderators, and expanded their ability to intercept extreme content before it was published.

It seemed unthinkable back in 2019 that real action would not be taken to regulate and moderate social media platforms to prevent the propagation of violent, online extremism in all its forms. The livestream was a core element of the Christchurch attack, carefully framed to resemble a video game and intended to inspire future attacks.

Nearly two years later, multiple social media platforms were central to the incitement and organising of the violent attack on the US Capitol that caused multiple deaths and injuries, and led many to fear a civil war was about to erupt.

Indeed, social media was implicated in every aspect of the Capitol Building attack, just as it had been in the Christchurch massacre. Both were fermented by wild and unfounded conspiracy theories that circulated freely across social media platforms. Both were undertaken by people who felt strongly connected to an online community of true believers.

Read more: Uncivil wars? Political lies are far more dangerous than Twitter pile-ons

The testimony of Stephen Ayres to the January 6 congressional hearings provides a window into the process of radicalisation.

Describing himself as an ordinary family man who was hard core into social media, Ayres pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct for his role in the Capitol invasion. He referenced his accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as the source of his belief that the 2020 US Presidential election had been stolen. His primary sources were posts made by the former president himself.

Ayres testified that a tweet by President Trump had led him to attend the Save America rally. He exemplified the thousands of Americans who were not members of any extremist group, but had been motivated through mainstream social media to travel to Washington D.C.

The role of former US President Trump in the rise of right-wing extremism, in the US and beyond, is a recurring theme in Rethinking Social Media and Extremism, which I co-edited with Paul Pickering. At the time of the Christchurch massacre, there was ample evidence that US-based internet companies were providing global platforms for extremist causes.

Yet whenever their content moderation extended to the voices of the far right, these companies faced censure from conservatives, including from the Trump White House. The message was clear: allowing unfettered free speech for the so-called alt-right was the price social media companies would have to pay for their oligopoly. Though the growing danger of domestic terrorism was apparent, the threat of antitrust suits was a powerful disincentive for corporate action against right-wing extremists.

Social media companies have faced significant pressure from nations outside the US. For example, within months of the Christchurch attack, world leaders came together in Paris to sign the Christchurch Call to combat violent extremism online. The document was moderate in tone, but the US refused to sign. Instead, the White House doubled down in alleging that the major threat lay in the suppression of conservative voices.

In 2021, the Biden administration belatedly signed up to the Christchurch Call, but it has not succeeded in advancing any measures domestically. Despite some tough talk during the election campaign, President Biden has been unable to pass legislation that would better regulate technology companies.

With the midterm elections looming elections which often go against the party of the president there is little reason for optimism. The decisions of US lawmakers will continue to reverberate globally while ownership of Western social media remains firmly centred in the US.

Read more: How self-publishing, social media and algorithms are aiding far-right novelists

The spirit of libertarianism lives on within companies that exploded from home-grown start-ups to trillion dollar corporations within a decade. Their commitment to self-regulation suited legislators, who struggled to understand this new and constantly shape-shifting technology. The demonstrable failure of self-regulation has proven lethal for the targets of terrorism and now presents as a danger to democracy itself.

In her chapter in Rethinking Social Media and Extremism, Sally Wheeler asks us to reconsider the basis of the social licence social media companies have to operate within democracies. She argues that, rather than asking whether their activities are legal, we might ask what reforms are needed to ensure social media does not cause serious harm to people or societies.

Now central to the provision of many public services, social media platforms might be deemed public utilities and, for this reason alone, be subject to different and higher rules and expectations. This point was amply if unintentionally demonstrated by Facebook itself when it blocked many sites including emergency services during a disagreement with the Australian Government in 2021. In the process, Facebook shone a spotlight on the nations growing reliance on a poorly regulated, privately owned platform.

Amid the national outcry following the Christchurch massacre, the Australian government hastily introduced legislation intended to increase the responsibilities of internet companies. Reportedly drafted in just 48 hours before being rushed through both houses of parliament, the bill was always going to be flawed.

Effective reform demands that we first recognise the internet as a space in which actions carry real-world consequences. The most visible victims are those directly targeted by threats of extreme violence mainly women, immigrants and minorities. Even when the threats are not enacted, people are intimidated into silence, even self-harm.

More insidious but perhaps just as harmful in the long term, is the overall decline in civility that drives public discourse towards extreme positions. On social media, what is known as the Overton Window of mainstream political debate has not so much been pushed out as kicked in.

There is broad agreement that existing legal and regulatory frameworks are simply inadequate for the digital age. Yet even as the global pandemic has accelerated our reliance on all things digital, there is less agreement about the nature of the problem, much less about the remedies required. While action is clearly needed, there is always the danger of overreach.

The functioning of democratic society depends as much on our ability to debate ideas and express dissent as it does on the prevention of violent extremism. Our challenge is to balance free speech against other competing rights on the internet, just as we do elsewhere. The current approach of simply ratcheting up the penalties faced by social media companies is more likely to tip the balance against free speech. In a communication landscape that is increasingly concentrated in the hands of just a few major corporations, we are in need of more voices and more diversity, not less.

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Clickbait extremism, mass shootings, and the assault on democracy time for a rethink of social media? - The Conversation

The artificial intelligence has looked for patterns between audio recordings and the brain activity of people listening to those recordings. John M Lund Photography Inc / Getty Images

Scientists are trying to use artificial intelligence to translate brain activity into language.

An A.I. program analyzedsnippets of brain activity from people who were listening to recorded speech. It tried to match these brainwavesto a long list of possible speech segments that the person may have heard, writes Science News Jonathan Moens. The algorithm produced its prediction of the ten most likely possibilities, and over 70 percent of the time, its top-ten lists contained the correct answer.

The study, conducted by a team at Facebooks parent company, Meta, was posted in August to the preprint server arXiv and has not been peer reviewed yet.

In the past, much of the work to decode speech from brain activity has relied on invasive methods that require surgery, writes Jean-Rmi King, a Meta A.I. researcher and a neuroscientist at the cole Normale Suprieure in France, in a blog post. In the new research, scientists used brain activity measured with non-invasive technology.

The findings currently have limited practical implications, per New Scientists Matthew Sparkes. But the researchers hope to one day help people who cant communicate by talking, typing or gesturing, such as patients who have suffered severe brain injuries, King writes in the blog post. Most existing techniques to help these people communicate involve risky brain surgeries, per Science News.

In the experiment, the A.I. studied a pre-existing database of 169 peoples brain activity, collected as they listened to recordings of others reading aloud. The brain waves were recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG), which non-invasively measure the magnetic or electric component of brain signals, according to Science News.

The researchers gave the A.I. three-second segments of brain activity. Then, given a list of more than 1,000 possibilities, they asked the algorithm to pull the ten sound recordings it thought the person had most likely heard, per Science News. The A.I. wasnt very successful with the activity from EEG readings, but for the MEG data, its list contained the correct sound recording 73 percent of the time, according to Science News.

The AIs performance was above what many people thought was possible at this stage, Giovanni Di Liberto, a computer scientist at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland who was not involved in the study, tells Science News. Of its practical use though, he says, What can we do with it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Thats because MEG machines are too costly and impractical for widespread use, he tells Science News. Plus, MEG scans might not ever be able to capture enough detail of the brain to improve upon the findings, says Thomas Knpfel, a neuroscientist at Imperial College London in England, who didnt contribute to the research, to New Scientist. Its like trying to stream an HD movie over old-fashioned analogue telephone modems, he tells the publication.

Another drawback, experts say, is that the A.I. required a finite list of possible sound snippets to choose from, rather than coming up with the correct answer from scratch. With language, thats not going to cut it if we want to scale it to practical use, because language is infinite, says Jonathan Brennan, a linguist at the University of Michigan who didnt contribute to the research, to Science News.

King notes to Times Megan McCluskey that the study has only examined speech perception, not production. In order to help people, future technology would need to figure out what people are trying to communicate, which King says will be extremely challenging. We dont have any clue whether [decoding thought] is possible or not, he tells New Scientist.

Currently, the research, which is conducted by the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research Lab and not directed top-down by Meta, is not designed for a commercial purpose, King tells Time.

To the critics, he says there is still value in this research. I take this more as a proof of principle, he tells Time. There may be pretty rich representations in these [brain] signalsmore than perhaps we would have thought.

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By Reading Brainwaves, an A.I. Aims to Predict What Words People Listened to - Smithsonian Magazine

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that has been shown to have extrapulmonary manifestations. One association with COVID-19 is rhabdomyolysis, which is defined as the breakdown of skeletal muscles. There have been increasing reports of rhabdomyolysis in obese, middle-aged male COVID-19 patients, but limited published cases affecting young adult females. This case discusses the early presentation of rhabdomyolysis in a young, morbidly obese, asthmatic woman with COVID-19.

A 28-year-old, unvaccinated, African American female with past medical history of asthma, tobacco abuse, and a BMI of 46 initially presented to the emergency department with a complaint of fever, cough, and shortness of breath for two days. She was initially diagnosed with an asthma exacerbation and was treated symptomatically, but her symptoms persisted despite treatment. She began to experience myalgias the next day, followed by bilateral lower extremity weakness and dark urine two days later. Urinalysis revealed gross hematuria, 2-4 red blood cells per high-power field, 100 mg/dL protein, >8.0 mg/dL urobilinogen, and 0-2 hyaline casts. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and creatine kinase (CK) levels were noted to be elevated. Her subsequent COVID-19 test was positive, and both blood and respiratory cultures were negative. She was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis which was likely secondary to COVID-19. Her CK, ALT, and AST levels normalized after two weeks with the resolution of rhabdomyolysis, but she continued to have persistent COVID-19 infection and deteriorating respiratory status. She eventually required mechanical ventilation on day 20 and passed away on day 59 of hospitalization.

Rhabdomyolysis is an infrequent finding that can be associated with COVID-19. It has been increasingly reported in middle-aged obese male patients but is far less common in younger females. The presence of elevated CK has been associated with higher mortality among COVID-19 patients, but current literature demonstrates that the majority of these patients are older males. It is imperative to recognize and treat rhabdomyolysis in all patients, particularly younger females, to help mitigate the comorbidities of COVID-19.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus that has resulted in a global pandemic and millions of deaths in the past two and a half years. Initially detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the primary reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 are bats and it is transmitted human to human via respiratory droplets [1]. The pathophysiology of COVID-19 involves the spike glycoprotein (S) of SARS-CoV-2 attaching to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor of host type 2 pneumocytes, followed by cleavage and activation of the ACE2 receptor via type 2 transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2), allowing fusion of SARS-CoV-2 with respiratory epithelial cells [2]. The resulting release of proinflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-, can lead to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and multi-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) [2]. Although the main target of SARS-CoV-2 is the respiratory system, it has been associated with a myriad of extrapulmonary symptoms including cardiovascular, hematologic, neurologic, and renal systems [3]. Notably, infrequent cases of rhabdomyolysis associated with COVID-19 have been emerging since the onset of the global pandemic [4-9]. A systematic review of case reports over the past two years showed an estimated incidence of rhabdomyolysis between 0.2 and 2.2% among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, in which the median age was 50 years old and 77% comprised males [9]. Among these patients, 36% required mechanical ventilation and 30% died. A 2021 meta-analysis of observational studies reviewing 2471 patients reported an incidence of elevated creatine kinase (CK) of 17%, and it was found that an elevated CK level is associated with a 49% probability of having severe COVID-19 infection or death compared to 24% probability in patients who had a normal CK level [10]. Rhabdomyolysis, which is defined as skeletal muscle breakdown resulting in the release of intracellular components and myoglobin, can have a variety of causes. The most common etiologies of rhabdomyolysis include trauma secondary to crush injury, immobilization, overexertion, and exogenous toxins such as ethanol, illicit drugs, and prescribed medications (particularly statin drugs) [11]. Viruses have also been reported as causative agents, including influenza A & B, enteroviruses, and the original SARS-CoV that was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003 [7,11-13]. Potential mechanisms for viral rhabdomyolysis include direct viral invasion of muscles, cytokine storm within muscle tissue, and destruction of the muscle cell membrane due to circulating toxins [14]. However, the exact mechanism of rhabdomyolysis induced by SARS-CoV-2 is still unknown [14]. COVID-associated rhabdomyolysis may have an initial or late presentation in the disease course [7,8,13,15]. Diagnosis of rhabdomyolysis is made if the serum CK, an enzyme used as an indicator for muscle damage, is elevated above 1000 U/L [6]. Severe rhabdomyolysis is noted if serum CK is above 5000 U/L [6]. Serum myoglobin is not routinely tested in the setting of rhabdomyolysis due to its short half-life of two to three hours, and it is rapidly excreted and metabolized to bilirubin [16,17]. A small amount of bilirubin is excreted as urobilinogen, which can be detected by urinalysis [16,17]. Myoglobin can be detected in the urine if the serum concentration exceeds 1.5 mg/dL, and visible changes in the urine can be seen when urine myoglobin levels reach 100 to 300 mg/dL [16,17]. In this case report, we will explore the clinical course of a young, morbidly obese, asthmatic woman, who contracted COVID-19 and was noted to have rhabdomyolysis as an initial presentation.

A 28-year-old, unvaccinated, African American female with a past medical history of asthma, tobacco abuse, and a BMI of 46 initially presented to the emergency department in September 2021 with a complaint of fever, cough, and shortness of breath for two days. Her initial COVID-19 test was negative, and her symptoms were attributed to asthma which was treated with albuterol. Of note, her last documented asthma exacerbation was one month prior to her current presentation. She continued to have a fever with a peak of 104F along with myalgias and arthralgias which prompted her to return to the ED the following day. Her SpO2 was 98%, and chest X-ray showed signs of lobar pneumonia (Figure 1). She was empirically treated as an outpatient with amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. Her symptoms worsened despite treatment, so she returned to the ED two days later with an additional complaint of dark urine and bilateral lower extremity muscle weakness. She was found to have SpO2 of 93% with desaturation to 80% when walking, which required treatment with supplemental oxygen at 2 L/min via nasal cannula. Urinalysis revealed gross hematuria, 2-4 red blood cells per high-power field, 100 mg/dL protein, >8.0 mg/dL urobilinogen, and 0-2 hyaline casts; urine hemoglobin and urine myoglobin were not part of the urinalysis test. She was retested for COVID-19 which came back positive, but other viral testing was not performed to rule out alternate viral etiologies. She did meet sepsis criteria at that time for possible superimposed bacterial pneumonia (fever, elevated leukocyte count, tachycardia, elevated respiratory rate, and elevated lactic acid > 2.0), thus necessitating hospital admission. She was empirically treated with a course of levofloxacin and ceftriaxone for pneumonia while respiratory and blood culture results were pending; however, both culture results came back negative a few days later. Antibiotics were discontinued after receiving the negative culture results, and she was started on corticosteroids to address acute respiratory distress. Chest CT on day 1 of hospitalization revealed consolidation in the right middle and right lower lobes, but it was negative for pulmonary embolism (Figure 2). CT pulmonary angiogram on day 2 revealed worsening consolidation and pulmonary infiltrates that had become bilateral, and ground-glass type opacities predominant in the central lungs concerning for COVID-19 pneumonia (Figure 3). Meanwhile, her ALT and AST levels increased exponentially over the duration of 12 hours since admission, with a peak on day 5 (Figure 4). Her CK level was also elevated at > 40,000 U/L during the first six days of hospitalization (Figure 5). The following liver enzymes were within normal limits:ALP (75 U/L) and gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) (45 U/L). Total bilirubin (1.6 mg/dL)and international normalized ratio (INR) (0.95) were also within the normal range. Urine culture was negative and repeat testing four days later remained negative. A comprehensive metabolic panel showed creatinine levels between 1.08 and 1.32 mg/dL and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) between 48 and 59 mL/min/1.73 m2 corresponding with the timeframe of the transaminitis. Blood ethanol and acetaminophen levels were within normal limits. Urine Legionella antigen, urine drug screen, and hepatitis panel were negative. Her liver ultrasound revealed a normal biliary tract without evidence of fibrosis. Gastroenterology was consulted, and transaminitis was attributed secondary to rhabdomyolysis likely associated with COVID-19. It was suggested that transaminitis would improve once CK level normalized, so conservative management of rhabdomyolysis with intravenous fluids was advised. She was initially unable to receive remdesivir treatment for COVID-19 due to transaminitis, and an IL-6 inhibitor was contraindicated given her underlying sepsis. She did receive corticosteroids and supplemental oxygen for the treatment of COVID-19. After day 8, her CK, ALT, and AST levels started to decrease, but her respiratory status continued to deteriorate despite previous treatment with corticosteroids. Her supplemental oxygen requirement steadily increased from 2 L/min on admission to 30 L/min via high-flow nasal cannula the following week and up to 60 L/min two weeks after admission. She was retested for COVID-19 on day 16 which came back positive. Her respiratory and blood cultures were repeated at the same time, and they remained negative. Given her negative respiratory and blood cultures, her worsening respiratory status was attributed to COVID-19. She was started on remdesivir treatment after resolution of rhabdomyolysis and transaminitis; this was the only available option during her hospitalization in September 2021 given the supply shortages at that time. Maximal medical therapy was reached without improvement of her respiratory status, and she eventually required intubation and mechanical ventilation on day 20. She received propofol, cisatracurium, and epoprostenol while being mechanically ventilated, and she required upwards of 15 cm H2O of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). Attempted ventilator weaning trials were unsuccessful as she rapidly desaturated each time. She developed tongue ulceration after prolonged intubation on day 44, followed by sepsis.CT angiogram of the chest on day 57 revealed diffuse pulmonary fibrosis with associated ground-glass attenuation, bilateral centrilobular consolidations, and traction bronchiectasis (Figure 6). These findings were attributed to the sequelae of severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Her family decided to switch to comfort care, and the patient passed away on day 59.

This case describes how rhabdomyolysis associated with COVID-19 can be an initial transient presentation in a young adult female, in contrast to several reported cases involving middle-aged male patients [6,7,9,14,15]. Although there is one reported case of a 19-year-old female with an initial presentation of rhabdomyolysis, she had a daily strength training routine which likely contributed to muscle damage, whereas our patient did not have any preceding history of crush injury or strenuous exercise prior to rhabdomyolysis [5]. Our patient did eventually require sedation and immobilization on day 20 for mechanical ventilation; however, this would not explain her elevated CK levels on admission. If immobilization was the cause of rhabdomyolysis, then CK level would have risen after she was placed on mechanical ventilation. Furthermore, her negative urine drug screen, normal blood ethanol level, and negative medication history exclude exogenous toxins as the etiology of rhabdomyolysis. Her initial elevated CK of >40,000 U/L on admission is notable since this could have been a prognostic indicator for her poor outcome. According to two systematic reviews of case reports, an elevated CK level with or without overt rhabdomyolysis was associated with higher severity of COVID-19 infection and death [9,10]. Although there is no causal relationship between elevated CK level and poor prognosis, perhaps it could have been used as a sign to initiate more aggressive treatments early on to help mitigate further complications.

Her urinalysis findings are also pertinent in the setting of rhabdomyolysis. Although urine hemoglobin and urine myoglobin were not measured, the presence of elevated urinary protein and urobilinogen may indicate urinary excretion of myoglobin metabolites. As a brief review, myoglobin is metabolized into bilirubin, which is converted to urobilinogen by gut bacteria [16,17]. Proteinuria can be attributed to the myoglobin release and degradation of other proteins from myocytes [16]. In the setting of elevated CK level in our patient, she was likely releasing large amounts of myoglobin that was degraded into bilirubin, which likely contributed to the presence of elevated urobilinogen in the urine. Despite the lack of urine hemoglobin and myoglobin, the presence of proteinuria and urobilinogen can serve as a proxy for determining myoglobinuria.

One study has suggested that pre-existing asthma is not a significant risk factor for contracting COVID-19 but having an acute exacerbation within the past year is associated with higher mortality [18]. Review of the patients chart reveals that she had an acute asthma exacerbation just one month prior to contracting COVID-19. Studies have suggested that ACE2 expression is reduced in asthmatics due to the Th2-mediated inflammation of epithelial cells, which could decrease susceptibility to COVID-19 [18]. However, poor asthma control and exacerbation place the patient in a proinflammatory state that could lead to a cytokine storm, thus increasing the risk of mortality from COVID-19 [18].

There is one clear predisposing factor for our patient, which is morbid obesity. The state of chronic inflammation seen in obese patients predisposes them to cytokine storm seen in severe COVID-19 infection [19]. Furthermore, obese patients are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 due to the higher expression of the ACE2 enzyme in adipose tissue [19]. Intriguingly, our patient is both morbidly obese and asthmatic, so it is difficult to determine whether her ACE2 expression is higher or lower than average. Regardless, her morbid obesity and recent asthma exacerbation likely had synergistic effects that increased the disease severity and poor outcome.

One limitation of this case report is the lack of urine myoglobin level in our patient. As discussed above, the presence of elevated urinary protein and urobilinogen can be used to determine myoglobinuria in the setting of myalgias and elevated CK. Alternatively, we could directly check urine myoglobin levels in patients who present with myalgias, but this may be impractical due to additional financial burden. Another limitation is the lack of a formal workup for a possible underlying autoimmune disease. Given that our patient is a young African American female, she fits the demographic that has a higher probability of having an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder which could have contributed to her robust inflammatory response to COVID-19. Since rhabdomyolysis can have a vague initial presentation, it may be prudent to check serum CK levels in patients that test positive for COVID-19, particularly in obese patients. If serum CK level exceeds >1000 U/L and rhabdomyolysis is diagnosed, then conservative treatment with intravenous fluids can prevent the development of acute kidney injury and help reduce the disease burden. Current literature suggests that elevated CK with or without overt rhabdomyolysis is associated with increased mortality among COVID-19 patients, but the limited sample size leaves room for more investigation [9,10]. As a scientific community, it is our responsibility to determine which patients are at a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 complications. It may be reasonable to include the serum CK level in the initial workup of COVID-19, and if this level is high, then it could alert for more aggressive measures to help prevent future comorbidities.

Rhabdomyolysis is a rare finding associated with COVID-19 that can have an early or late presentation. It is predominantly seen in middle-aged obese males, but it can be seen in younger females as well. The presence of elevated CK has been associated with higher mortality among COVID-19 patients, but current literature demonstrates that the majority of these patients are older males. There is no causal relationship between rhabdomyolysis and poor prognosis for COVID-19. However, it is still imperative to recognize and treat rhabdomyolysis in all patients, particularly younger females, to help mitigate the comorbidities of COVID-19.

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A Case of Rhabdomyolysis in a Young, Morbidly Obese, Asthmatic Woman With COVID-19 - Cureus

Only 14 per cent of Capitol riots arrestees to date have been women, and yet women played key leadership roles that are important in understanding alt-right movements. Playing into gendered assumptions, researchers of the alt-right tend to characterize womens participation as passive, with the demographics of Capitol riots arrestees revealing the predominance of white, middle-aged, middle-class men.

However, in our research on digital media and disinformation related to the Capitol riots, we have found that women served key leadership functions in the organization and performance of the riots. They planned events, provided a gentler face for the alt-right, nurtured social cohesion among participants and shaped the direction of the riots.

One commonality between men and women in the Capitol riots was that the vast majority were white. Yet, white women straddle two intersectional identities, one dominant (whiteness) and one oppressed (female).

This allows them to choose when and how to enact each identity. Far-right movements tend to rely on traditional gender roles, contributing in this instance to womens adoption of the labels classic woman or tradwife roles based on sex-realism.

Read more: Tradwives: the women looking for a simpler past but grounded in the neoliberal present

Sex-realism is the notion that women are biologically different from men and thus cannot be equal; while not considered subordinate, traditional roles for women are prescribed. Included in this alt-right form of feminism are race-based pressures to reproduce white children, associated with the racist rhetoric of Make America Great Again.

Women who participated in the Capitol riots performed traditional gender roles intersecting with racist rhetoric and actions. Our study of womens participation at the Capitol riots identified four key groups: mobilizers, QAMoms (female QAnon conspiracy adherents), militias, and martyrs.

Women played key roles in the organization of the Jan. 6 protest, with Women for America First (W4AF) serving as key mobilizers of the march-turned-riot.

In the weeks before the Capitol riots, W4AF held a 20-city bus tour with Bob Cavanaugh, a county commissioner in North Carolina saying, allegedly jokingly: Wed solve every problem in this country if on the 4th of July every conservative went and shot one liberal.

Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also served as an instigator of the riot, posting on the far-right social network Parler and inciting protesters to interfere with the peaceful transition of power. She posted she needed a grassroots army, in a promoted parley that garnered 39 million views, 240,000 upvotes and 12,000 comments.

Mobilizers such as W4AF and Greene are typically well-known, well-funded women who operate behind-the-scenes, exercising a great deal of agency or social power.

Women characterized as QAMoms, may be actual mothers and/or they may act as mothers of the movement. They have been introduced to conspiracy theories like QAnon, which exploit the nostalgia of an idealized past, through hashtags like #SaveTheChildren.

On the surface, this hashtag represents a movement against child sex trafficking, but it has been repurposed by QAnon and QAMoms to promote the far-fetched conspiracy that deep-state Democrats are a cabal of sex-trafficking satanists.

Women drawn to the alt-right through conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns were seen at the Capitol riots leading prayers, providing first aid, organizing food and assuming stereotypical mothering roles. While playing into traditional gendered roles, these forms of mothering are also displays of leadership and social agency.

Alt-right women also, perhaps surprisingly, organize and participate in militias. Jessica Watkins, who served in the U.S. army in Afghanistan, was arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy for her alleged leadership role in the Capitol riots.

Watkins is transgender, and has been subjected to transphobic inhumane treatment in prison, up to and including being housed naked in a brightly lit cell for several days.

She is alleged to have actively recruited members from the Ohio State Regular Militia that she had founded, and to have planned a military style takeover of the Capitol. Watkins was seen during the riots dressed in military garb and moving with militia members in military stack formation.

Shaped by military training, women who participate in and lead militias performed skilled leadership activities in the riots, such as directing and leading others to attack police lines or scale walls, in their alleged attempt to overthrow the state.

At the Capitol riots, some participants dressed up and performed the roles of famous patriotic women. Others like Watkins were at the forefront of the incursion into the Capitol building.

One of the most dramatic deaths of the day was such a woman. Ashli Babbitt, a business owner and self-styled QAMom, was shot attempting to climb through a window to gain access to lawmakers in the House lobby.

Babbitt was immediately claimed as a martyr by far-right groups, barely moments after her death and against the wishes of her family. The outgoing POTUS Trump himself characterized her as having died at the hands of a corrupt government despite the fact that he himself was President at the time of her death.

It may seem nonsensical for women to work against their own interests in supporting Trump, a man accused of sexual assault and misogyny. An explanation is contained within sex-realism, a particular worldview that many QAMoms hold. Instead of pointing to structures of patriarchy as oppressive, sex-realism is used by alt-right women to scapegoat immigrants and people of colour those below them in societys constructed racial hierarchies.

For tradwives, it may be easier to blame outsiders than to confront the fact that oppressive structures and behaviours may be enacted within their very families.

Yet, with the rise of global populism, we should not risk overlooking the contained agency of women participating in alt-right movements, where they mobilize disinformation, reinforce the traditional gender binary, promote conspiracies and enact racism.

The leadership of alt-right women ultimately paves the way for the escalating racist violence of male counterparts within the groups they lead, nurture and mother.

Read more here:

Mothers of the movement: Leadership by alt-right women paves the way for violence - The Conversation

President Donald Trumps efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were brazenly antidemocratic. Yet Trump and his supporters nonetheless justified their actions under the dubious pretense of preserving American democracy as a matter of getting the vote right, of reversing voter fraud.

Theres a good reason they took this approach. Authoritarianism has long been rejected across the political spectrum. Democrats and Republicans routinely lob insults like dictator or fascist to describe politicians of the other party who are in power.

But in recent months, a strand of conservative thought whose adherents are forthright in their disdain for democracy has started to creep into GOP politics. Its called neoreaction, and its leading figure, a software engineer and blogger named Curtis Yarvin, has ties to at least two GOP U.S. Senate candidates, along with Peter Thiel, a major GOP donor.

In my years researching the far right, I see this as one of the more significant developments in right-wing politics. Someone who calls himself a monarchist isnt being relegated to the fringes of the internet. Hes being interviewed by Fox News Tucker Carlson and has U.S. Senate candidates repeating his talking points.

In 2007, Yarvin launched his blog, Unqualified Reservations. Writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, he produced a prodigious corpus of political philosophy.

In his writings, Yarvin cites his political influences. They include the 19th-century political philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who disdained democracy and thought it could too easily veer into mob rule; American 20th-century political theorist James Burnham, who became convinced that elites would come to control the countrys politics while couching their interests in democratic rhetoric; and economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who, in his 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed, wrote of how all organizations irrespective of size are best managed by a single executive.

Yarvin is perhaps best known for his concept of the cathedral his term for the U.S. ruling regime. Yarvis argues that virtually all opinion-makers, most notably those in academia and journalism, are essentially reading the same book. In an essay for Tablet Magazine, Yarvin wrote that whats often characterized as the marketplace of ideas is actually a monoculture that props up an oligarchy.

The cathedral is self-reinforcing: Individual journalists and professors are rewarded when they follow the ruling ethos. Those who do otherwise risk being punished or at the very least face diminished career prospects.

Another important neoreactionary figure is Nick Land, whose main contribution to the philosophy is the concept of accelerationism. In essence, accelerationism is based on Vladimir Lenins notion that worse is better. The Russian revolutionary maintained that the more chaotic conditions became, the greater the likelihood that his Bolshevik party could accomplish its goals.

Analogously, right-wing accelerationists believe that they can hasten the demise of liberal democratic governments by stoking political tension.

Both Yarvin and Land believe that gradual, incremental reforms to democracy will not save Western society; instead, a hard reset or reboot is necessary. To that end, Yarvin has coined the acronym RAGE Retire All Government Employees as a crucial step toward that goal. The acronym is reminiscent of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannons vow to deconstruct the administrative state.

Yarvin advocates for an entirely new system of government what he calls neocameralism. He advocates for a centrally managed economy led by a monarch perhaps modeled after a corporate CEO who wouldnt need to adhere to plodding liberal-democratic procedures. Yarvin has written approvingly of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism.

While not explicitly fascist, Yarvins worldview does, at times, appear to have a fascistic bent. As the historian Roger Griffin once argued, the essence of fascism was a nationwide process of death and rebirth. Yarvins rhetoric of reboots and hard resets evokes the imagery of national renewal.

Moreover, though he maintains that he is not a white nationalist, he has echoed racist views like the belief that white people, on average, have higher IQs than Black people.

Though neoreaction has long eschewed involvement in electoral politics, it seems to be be gradually penetrating mainstream right-wing spaces.

Yarvin is said to have helped popularize the red pill meme in alt-right subcultures. Pulled from the 1999 film The Matrix, to take the red pill is to no longer live under the spell of delusion. In the context of politics, it means breaking free from the spell of liberal orthodoxy.

In September 2021, Yarvin made an appearance on Tucker Carlson Today, during which he explained the concept of the cathedral. When Yarvin called himself a monarchist, Carlson didnt bat an eye.

Then, in May 2022, Vanity Fair reported on the relationship among Yarvin, GOP megadonor and venture capitalist Peter Thiel and U.S. Senate candidates J.D. Vance and Blake Masters.

Thiel, who is often described as a libertarian, holds views that can appear to be contradictory or mysterious. Reporter Max Chafkin, who wrote a biography of Thiel, told Politico in September 2021 that the investor has an authoritarian streak a longing for a more powerful chief executive.

Thiel, like Yarvin, has expressed frustration with American democracy. As far back as 2004, Thiel lamented that Americas constitutional machinery prevents any single ambitious person from reconstructing the old Republic. In 2013, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur invested in Yarvins firm, the Tlon Corp., best known for developing a decentralized personal server platform. And according to Yarvin, he and Thiel watched the returns of the 2016 U.S. presidential election together.

During the 2022 election cycle, Thiel has donated more than $10 million to super PACs supporting Vance and Masters, who also serves as the president of the Thiel Foundation.

Vance, who won his primary in June, is perhaps best known for his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Though Vance once denounced Trump, he has since embraced the former president and now calls for a De-Ba'athification program for the civil service a reference to the purging of Saddam Husseins loyalists after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. He cites Yarvin as a friend and mentor.

Yarvin, meanwhile, has given $5,800, the maximum amount allowed for individual contributions, to Blake Masters Senate campaign. Masters, for his part, has echoed one of Yarvins maxims RAGE, or Retire All Government Employees on the stump.

To be fair, neither Masters nor Vance has called for the dismantling of U.S. democracy. Yet they espouse a brand of apocalyptic rhetoric that depicts a governing system on its last legs. Psychopaths, Masters earnestly explains in one web ad, are running the country.

The current order, Vance proclaimed in a podcast interview, will meet its inevitable collapse.

Theres this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things, Vance added.

Why might neoreactionary ideas be gaining currency among right-wing candidates and donors?

Trumps electoral success illustrated the acute dissatisfaction the American far right has had with the establishment wing of the Republican Party.

But more broadly, public trust in government has eroded to the point where only 2 in 10 Americans say they trust the federal government to do the right thing. A Gallup Poll published on July 5, 2022, found that only 7% of Americans had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress the legislative bodys lowest recorded rating in 43 years of polling. A Monmouth University poll released that same day reported that 88% of Americans believe the U.S. is on the wrong track. And in a July 2022 New York Times/Siena College poll, 58% of those polled said the government needs major reforms or a complete overhaul.

With confidence in government at historic lows, a window opens for other ideologies to seed the political imagination. Neoreaction is but one of them.

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An antidemocratic philosophy called 'neoreaction' is creeping into GOP politics - The Conversation